Celtic Camino

I invite you to join me on the Autumn 2010 Pilgrimage of the Seven Sisters on the Celtic Camino.

For 14 days in early October, I will be leading a group of seven women to walk the first leg of the first stage of the Celtic Camino pilgrimage, from Santiago de Compostela, Spain to Léon, Spain along the well known and traveled path of the El Camino de Santiago.

As we walk, we will lay and infuse the foundation of the entire pilgrimage with the loving power of the Divine Feminine, and we will set the intention to heal the split for ourselves, humanity, the Earth and all of Life.

Do you feel or hear a calling to go on a sacred feminine pilgrimage and to become a “peregrina”?

Contact me at sarah@weavingyourdreams.com to find out more.

I am a Pilgrim…actually, more accurately, a “peregrina” – a woman pilgrim.

I walked 170 kilometers of the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage last year, and then traveled by train the Celtic Camino, which follows a less well known pilgrimage path along a sacred configuration to seven pre-Christian sites from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, up through France to Rosslyn, Scotland. This sacred configuration forms the route of a “pilgrimage of initiation” used by the Druids and Christian mystics in their search for true knowledge and enlightenment. These 7 sacred sites actually correspond to the 7 chakras of the human body.

I want to credit Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins’ book Rosslyn:  Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail for revealing the Celtic Camino and for guiding me along the path.  When this book metaphorically fell into my hands in December 2008, I knew as soon as I saw the map below that this was the trip I was going to take.  In that moment, this sacred journey called me to it in a very powerful and visceral way.  This book has changed my life and actually aligned me with my life’s purpose in a profound and real way.  It called me into sacred action simply by their sharing their journey.  This is the power of a book.

The Initiation to Heal the Split

At the time, I truthfully was not sure what I was being initiated into!  I knew I was powerfully drawn to this particular pilgrimage and undertook it with my heart and soul last summer.  I now know that I was undergoing an initiation to “heal the split.”  I have experienced a split on many levels of my being, often leaving me feel disconnected from my true self and my truth, and in essence, I am split down the middle.  This split has even manifested physically in my body as a 1½-inch wide split down my belly that I have had since my first pregnancy 21 years ago.  I have learned how to live with this “diastasis”, as this is medically called, mostly by compensating for it and avoiding the activities that I was unable to do as a result of it.  I rarely, if ever, talked about or showed it to anyone.  It was one of those sources of shame that I dealt with quietly and privately on my own.  Yet, my physical world was getting narrower as I avoided activities that I loved such as Pilates and yoga because I simply couldn’t engage my core.  Many metaphors present themselves through this split, such as the split between spirit and matter, masculine and feminine, Heaven and Earth,  head and heart, rational and intuitive, to name a few.  I have experienced all of these, and more.

How do you experience the split?

Since the spring, I have been healing the split on the physical level, and of course, this has been the catalyst for deep healing and reconnecting with my wholeness on many levels.  Simultaneously, I “knew” very clearly this spring that I was to walk the Celtic Camino.

To acknowledge my calling to walk the Celtic Camino and to become a Pilgrimage Coach, author and speaker is a clear reflection of the deep inner healing of the split within me.  Plus, the split in my belly is now down to less than one finger wide!  WooHoo!

The Celtic Camino

I believe that the Celtic Camino pilgrimage is a sacred conduit for healing energy from the base chakra to the crown chakra of Mother Earth, and that She is asking women to walk it.  As we walk and travel along this sacred path, we offer a healing to heal the split for Mother Earth, as we simultaneously heal our own split.  We walk up Her chakras, and as we do, we offer our healing, our light and love to ourselves, and to the Earth along this powerful meridian of energy.  As Peter Dawkins says,

A true pilgrim who pilgrimages in love leaves footprints of light.Many pilgrims leave many such footprints, and a well-walked pilgrims’ way can become a path of light. There are multitudes of pilgrimage routes crossing the earth, with thousands of people pilgrimaging them every year.

Given that the entire Celtic Camino is a 4 to 5 month pilgrimage, I also knew that I would walk it in stages!  I have determined that the first stage of the journey is from Santiago, the base chakra, to Toulouse, France, the second and sacral chakra; the second stage is from Toulouse to Paris, the fifth chakra; and the third stage is from Paris up to Rosslyn, the seventh or crown chakra.

To “own” and step into my sacred and courageous dream, I very recently committed to walk the first stage of the Celtic Camino this fall and to lead a group of women on a section of it who know in the core of their being that they want to be a part of this sacred circle and sacred journey.

The 2010 Pilgrimage of the Seven Sisters

As I mentioned above, this group, the Pilgrimage of the Seven Sisters, will walk the first portion of the Celtic Camino from October 1st to October 15th.  We will walk for 14 days for an average of 20-25 kilometers a day, from Santiago, which corresponds to the first or base chakra and is the beginning of the Celtic Camino, to Léon, a beautiful city with a magnificent cathedral and historic old town center, which lies on the path to Toulouse, France, the second or sacral chakra.

This leg of the pilgrimage, from Santiago to Léon, will follow the path of El Camino de Santiago, and while it may look like we are walking the Camino “al contrairio”, we will actually be walking the first leg of the Celtic Camino toward Toulouse, with the ultimate destination being Rosslyn, Scotland.  With each step that we take, we will be infusing the foundation of the Celtic Camino with the sacred feminine, transforming it into La Camina, the Way of the Feminine, and sewing the seeds to heal the split.

You will need to add one day for  travel on either end of the trip for travel to Madrid, and then onto Santiago, as well as from Léon to Madrid, and then back home.  We will arrive and gather in Santiago de Compostela, the destination of the El Camino de Santiago, on Thursday, September 30th.

We will spend the next day in Santiago and get experience pilgrims of the El Camino as they arrive at their destination, knowing that we will be soon walking where they have just traveled.  We will stay in a delightful small hotel located in old town Santiago only a few meters from the Cathedral.  We will experience the Cathedral, explore what it means to be to be a pilgrim and to be in the first chakra energy of Santiago, and set our intentions for walking the Celtic Camino.

We will then walk for the 14 days through tiny villages and larger towns, fields and mountains, near farms and woods, along streams and old stone walls, to complete our pilgrimage in Léon, a wonderful city with a magnificent cathedral and a beautiful old town center, on Friday, October 15th.

Does the Celtic Camino call you?  How can you open to this extraordinary opportunity and be spontaneous to respond with a YES?

Everything Starts with a Decision.

It’s that simple.  Not making a decision is a decision.  If you feel the calling, I challenge you to make a powerful, and empowering, decision for yourself and your life right now.

Say YES to the Celtic Camino and the 2010 Pilgrimage of the Seven Sisters.  I know that it’s last minute, and I trust that sometimes spontaneity works best.

I challenge you, as I’ve challenged myself, to find the courage, the intuitive knowing, the trust, the dream, the desire, the inner impulse, and the “I have been asking for something just like this!”- whatever it is for you – and to just go for it and decide with a big YES!

This is exactly what I have just done, and I am only asking of you what I have done myself.

An Invitation, or a Calling

Do you feel the call or the pull to be a pilgrim on the Celtic Camino?

Perhaps you know someone who does…

Is the Celtic Camino calling you?

Often there is a calling, or a longing, or a dream, to do something of this nature – to be a pilgrim, or a “peregrina.”

• Sometimes you feel the need to do something different as a way to come back to yourself.
• You may be feeling the pull of the deep feminine that wants you to remember, re-claim and express who you really are.
• Perhaps your life is in transition and you are looking for an experience to take you out of the ordinary, to clarify your dreams and your soul’s purpose.
• Or you may just want to experience the simple life of getting up and walking through tiny villages and farms along the Camino, and to have the opportunity to simply walk and be in the present moment.
• Or perhaps you have always wanted to walk a pilgrimage and have wanted to be part of a special group that was walking with an intention that both aligned with your own and also provided a larger vision or container.
• Perhaps all of the above!

Whatever or however Celtic Camino is speaking to you – calling you, beckoning you, impulsing you, whispering to you, inviting you – listen to the calling and make a life-changing decision to join us on this beautiful pilgrimage.

You will know if you are one of the seven women to walk this first part of the Celtic Camino this fall.

You will know.  Trust this calling.  Trust yourself.

If this is something that you are called to do, or feel interested in, or curious about, or you know someone who may be interested in or wanting something like this, or you just know that you want to do it, please contact me at sarah@weavingyourdreams.com to find out more information about specific dates, costs, details and what’s included in the La Camina Coaching Program for the 2010 Pilgrimage of the Seven Sisters.

Please include in the subject line “I AM” interested to find out more, and I will send you more information immediately.  We can also talk by phone to answer all of your questions to support you to make a powerful, and right decision for you.

As Sue Kenney, my pilgrim mentor and sister, says in her wonderful book, My Camino,

By accepting the Camino’s spiritual quest to travel forward in a state of complete surrender, I would walk back to myself to become the authentic person I would recognize and know intimately.

I look forward to healing the split as together, we walk back to ourselves on the sacred pilgrimage of the Celtic Camino.